RIGHT: Quickly,
quickly, stabby
monkey.TIME TRIALCanyoubeatmy scores?
SAPIENZA
WORLDOF
TOMORROW
Score:163,623
Time:11:22
Tip:Findabetterroute.
Myoneisprettystupid.HAWKE’S
BAY
NIGHTCALL
Score: 195,744
Time: 1:46
Tip: Just syringe and run.
Syringe. And run.COLORADO
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Score: 94,630
Time: 25:16
Tip: I botched this one and
I don’t want to do it again.
Here’s a freebie.W
hen PC Gamer’s
former editor-in-chief
Samuel Roberts
tweeted that he’d
claimed the top spot
on the leaderboards for the
Hawke’s Bay level of Hitman 2, I
felt like I had something to prove.
I’d reviewed Hitman 2. I’d reviewed
every episode of 2016’s Hitman.
While I’m open to the possibility
that other people are better at the
series than me, I wasn’t about to let
someone who worked for the same
magazine hold the top spot.
I returned to the New Zealand beach
house and started optimising. Maybe
if I hid over here? Perhaps if I tossed
a coin over there? An hour of
experimentation later, and I’d beaten
Samuel’s score. I’d also realised there
much more I could do. My current
time was fine, but I was pretty sure
it could be beaten.
Hitman is an interesting
leaderboard game because speed isn’t
everything; you also need style. The
conditions required for a Silent
Assassin run – never spotted, no
noticed kills, no bodies found, no
recordings – each award a flat 20,000
points, for an 80,000 score bonus.
Without that, it doesn’t matter how
fast you finish, you’ll struggle to earn
enough points to reach the top.
Isolating the mission’s target, Alma
Reynard, takes time. As more people
joined our ad-hoc competition for
score supremacy, and as our
completion times reached down to
the three minute mark, it was clear
that further gains would require
inventive solutions.
For me, Hitman isn’t really a game
about killing. That’s just set
decoration for an intricate puzzle box
of interlocking systems and
behaviours. Chasing a good score
oftenmeansexploiting the
consequences of Hitman’s consistent
ruleset in a way that further strips
the already flimsy sense of
immersion. You don’t lose your Silent
Assassin rank, for instance, if a body
looks like it died a natural death. You
can lace a drink with poison, and,
when the body’s found, it’ll be
written off as a heart attack. That
rings true even in the most absurd
extreme. Which means if I toss a coin
to distract Alma’s guards and then
inject Alma with a poison syringe in
the brief moment they look the other
way, I still get a Silent Assassin rating.
I also get a time of 1:46, thoroughly
beating the rest of the group.TRIGGER HAPPY
Sapienza is Hitman’s best level, and
also the leaderboard time I’m most
proud of. After trading back-and-
forth with Samuel, I held the lead
with an 11:22 run.
Beginning in the mansion grounds
disguised as a gardener, I run to a
water bottle on a nearby table and
spike it with emetic. Then I make a
bee-line for the observatory. There’s a
VHS tape on the top floor that, when
open-palm slammed into the video
player below, causes my first target,
Silvio Caruso, to encounter a
projected screen of childhood
memories. He dismisses his guards to
reminisce and I kill him and hide his
body. The first target is down in less
than two minutes.
I run to a bathroom near the
observatory and find Caruso’s golfNEEDTOKNOW
RELEASED
November 13, 2018
OUR REVIEW
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hitman.comcoach puking his guts out thanks to
the water I’d laced. This is the crux
of my run, firing triggers to line up
events so they complete after I’ve
finished doing something else. After
the coach is subdued, I call his lover,
my second target, to arrange a
rendezvous. I sprint to the church on
the other side of town to stand by the
confession booth to trigger an event.
I sprint back to the mansion to kill
the second target, who’s moved to a
less secure location to meet her
paramour. I sprint back to thechurch, arriving just in time for the
conclusion of the event I triggered –
letting me steal an item that quickly
completes the final objective. Played
at this speed, it’s less about waiting as
it is sprinting with precision.
I’ve always loved Hitman as a
sandbox full of things to be poked
and exploited. But it wasn’t until I
started competing for score that I
realised just how little of its already
flimsy sense of immersion I needed.
Give me a playground of overlapping
AI behaviours, an objective, and a
need to be the best – more out of
spite than pride – and I’ll enjoy hours
trying to build a route that’s, most
importantly, faster than Samuel.PLAYED AT THIS SPEED, IT’S
LESS ABOUT WAITING AS IT IS
SPRINTING WITH PRECISIONPARIS
THE SHOWSTOPPER
Score: 183,698
Time: 3:17
Tip: Find the right starting
condition and make good
use of drainpipes.EXTRA LIFE
NOW PLAYING I UPDATE I MOD SPOTLIGHT I HOW TO I DIARY I WHY I LOVE (^) I REINSTALL I MUST PLAY